(countercurrentnews) Whether you love him or hate him, you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. In a recent effort to cut back the number of people incarcerated on non-violent drug charges, President Barack Obama said he will free dozens more federal prisoners in the next weeks, according to the New York Times.

Obama is planning on starting with the sentences of around 80 individuals who have been locked up on non-violent drug offenses. But that is just the start.

There are over 30,000 prisoners who have applied for clemency and there is talk emanating from the White House that these 80 are just the first wave.

The Obama administration claims that this is all part of a broader move to correct for judicial abuse, discrimination and general over-sentencing.

The Raw Story reports that the American Civil Liberties Union statistics reveal the United States is the largest prison population in the world.

While the nation only has 5% of the total global population, it houses a full 25% of the world’s imprisoned.

That is a 700% increase since 1970.

That’s remarkable when we consider that the 13th amendment never abolished slavery for prisoners. That means that today there are more African American slaves in the United States than at any other time in America’s history!

Watch the video below, where Obama discusses the crisis of U.S. mass incarceration…

OH YEAH, since we are not corporate or government owned help us outhere.